“Today is a day to celebrate the progress that has been made and the dreams realized over these last 50 years, but also to recommit ourselves to the basic civil rights outlined by Martin Luther King, Jr. and others on this summer day in 1963. We have moved forward as a country over these least five decades, and we now live in a world where more and more minorities are “able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” But while no longer have signs denoted “whites” and “blacks” but we do continue to have inequalities from race to race that must be addressed. 50 years ago, hundreds of thousands of brave souls marched in our nation’s capital demanding basic civil rights for all Americans, and the responsibility is upon us to continue to make this ‘dream’ a reality and to uphold the legacy of those who took a stand five decades ago.”